The smartphone market has become very competitive in Bangladesh lately. Especially with the companies having their own assembly factories in the country, the price of low-end and mid-end smartphones have gone down significantly.
Following the current market trend, Realme Narzo 20, released in September 2020, is still considered one of the smartphones’ that provides the best value for the money at Tk13,990.
The phone comes with either 4GB RAM and 64GB storage or 4GB RAM and 128GB storage. However, only the first variant is available in Bangladesh.
The Narzo 20 comes with a 6.5-inch IPS LCD display with a water drop notch that supports up to 560 nits backlight. The display resolution is 720x1600 pixels with a 20:9 ratio.
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The phone is equipped with Mediatek’s Helio G85 chipset. Realme claims that the smartphone scores 200,000 in AnTutu Benchmark.
Meanwhile, its competition, Poco M2, which was released in the same month and costs Tk1,000 extra, is equipped with Helio G80 chipset and comes with a 6.53 inches display. It supports peak brightness of 450 nits and the resolution is 1080x2340 pixels.
In daylight, Narzo 20’s display will be much more visible than other smartphones within this price range.
Along with its 48 megapixels AI Triple Camera, what makes Narzo 20 unique is its impressive 6000 mAh battery, which is expected to provide up to 45 days of standby.
Poco M2 has a 5000 mAh battery that won't last as long but Poco M2’s display will look better than Narzo 20.
Both the phones come up with an 18 Watts Type-C quick charger. It will take around 3 hours to fully charge the massive battery of Narzo 20 and 2.5 hours to charge Poco M2.
On the plus side, Narzo 20 also supports reverse charging technology, meaning that users will be able to charge other devices using this as a power bank.
The phone also has a massive sim card plus microSD card slow inside, which allows two sim cards and one microSD card to be used at the same time.
The triple camera unit provides one standard 48MP standard camera, one 8MP ultrawide camera and finally a 2MP macro camera. However, the camera performance of the phone may not impress many, considering that this is a low-end phone.
That being said, Realme has included all necessary beautification modes, Bokeh effect control, HDR, NightScape, AI scene recognition and other relevant features within the camera unit. It does take better photos than its competitors within the price range.
Meanwhile, Poco M2 has four camera units and in addition to a 2MP depth sensor, which will be helpful in capturing better photos, it also has a 5MP macro camera. However, its main camera is 13MP, compared to Narzo 20’s massive 48MP main camera.
For videos, Narzo 20 allows 60fps recording in 1080p resolution. The ultrawide camera is also equipped with video capabilities. Poco M2’s video is limited to 30fps.
The phone supports 4G and has Bluetooth 5.0 for low latency Bluetooth performance. The fingerprint sensor is located on the back of the smartphone.
Realme Narzo 20 is 164.5mm in height and 75.9mm in width, which offers a comfortable grip. The smartphone weighs around 208 grams without a case on. The back part is coated with matt finishing. So there are no worries about unnecessary fingerprints.
The phone has all the necessary sensors including a magnetic induction sensor, light sensor, proximity sensor and acceleration sensor.
It looks like the sacrifices Realme made in its Narzo 20 are mostly in the camera and display department. The sacrifice in display also came back as a reward since the phone’s battery will last longer due to this.
Meanwhile, Bangladeshi smartphone manufacturer Walton has its Primo RX9 device at Tk16,999 price, which is Tk2,000 more than Narzo 20. While it comes with a more powerful selfie camera (20MP) and more internal storage (128GB), there’s not much improvement in other areas.
Walton has a 2.0 GHz Helio G-series 12mm Octa-Core processor inside, which both Narzo 20 and Poco M2 have.
Considering everything, with Realme’s aggressive pricing, the Narzo 20 is the better option for a budget cellphone.